Wildly Offbase

The Skinny

The Red Sox's recent stretch of indifferent baseball has not caused the panic usually created by a June malaise.

After all, there is little difference between the wild card and winning the American League East.

And as long as Bud Selig is the pseudo-commish, it seems this will continue.

Selig told Sports Illustrated recently that the current playoff system allows for upsets (Anaheim, Florida) and mitigates the disparity in competition that plagues the regular season.

The idea, it seems, is to have an unfair playoff system to compensate for the unfair payroll system. Proponents of adding a second wild card team in each league, which would penalize the wild card teams by forcing them into a one-game playoff and would restore some import to divisional races, will just have to wait.

All the while, one ponders this: If Selig had the use of a ``best interest of baseball'' clause, would he ever use it?